Numba One
by Exilo
Summary: How a simple trip to the mess hall can turn into this is anyone's guess, but it did. Based on a real events. Sangheili/Jiralhanae/Kig-Yar/San'Shyuum/AI/human-centric. One-shot. Reconstruction franchise. R&R please.


___**I was really bored in the time between two of my classes (a two hour block of nothing), and I had offered to write something for a few of my friends. This is the product of that. Going down the list: Exilius belongs to me, the Prophetess of Wrath belongs to Avisu, Iza belongs to Luke-1539, Kazanna belongs to Starseeker347, Azula belongs to AzureNight13, and Priya belongs to Pae.**_

_Numba One_

"My number one?" Exilius asked as all eyes turned to him. There were five at the table, aside from himself. Going left to right, it was Sangheili Stealth Operative Priya Kanlaee, Kig-Yar marksman Iza, Lieutenant Azula Broeland, and the Prophetess of Wrath. Kazanna, the ship's AI, was in the center of the table, projecting through a hologram, so he wasn't sure who she was between.

"I was very young…"

"Musky young!" Iza chimed in, earning a growl from the Jiralhanae chieftain.

"Yes," he said. "I reeked of emotion. I had just reached manhood, but control over my scent still alluded me. It would be a while longer before I perfected that. My weapons were what I could scrounge from dead humans or those that my pack didn't use any longer. My chieftain…" Exilius sighed. "My chieftain was the embodiment of every slur and harsh word the Sangheili have ever thrown at my kind. He was a brute, for lack of a better word. But he was a giant amongst us. And that gave him power and respect.

"The hierarchs passed an operation to us; the heretics were pooled on a small moon. Too little resistance to call the attention of a Sangheili fleet. We would do.

"The humans were there though. My chieftain sent us all in a ridiculous charge. The humans must have been preparing for an attack the entire time they were there, building a vast fortress that we should have just glassed from orbit. It was a futile push, again and again. We were cut down, again and again. And the whole time, the chieftain just roared and ordered us forward. Finally, cut down and all bloodied and beaten, we retreated as best we could to our base. The chieftain ordered us to prepare for another push.

"I wasn't shocked by those orders. He was an idiot who would remain far out of harm's way at all times. A pathetic excuse for a Jiralhanae that deserved to be gutted. I challenged him to a duel."

"And you got your ass kicked," Iza cackled. He had heard this story before. Before Exilius could brain him, Azula slapped the back of the Kig-Yar's head, forcing his silence.

"My chieftain dominated me," Exilius continued. "He beat me viciously with his fists and feet. It was horrid. I had seen Mgalekgolo beat Unggoy in fits of anger, and I swear they didn't hit so hard. I fought back how I could, and once managed to catch his fingers in my teeth, but he broke my jaw. When he grew bored, he turned and retrieved his knife to finish me.

"When he turned his back, I managed to stand**, **chargeand ram him to the ground. I took his hair and yanked his head back. And I wretched the knife from his hand and dragged it across his throat."

Exilius nodded. "That was my number one."

Kazanna twisted (she was sitting cross-legged and her whole avatar moved). "Har, your turn."

The Prophetess of Wrath gave a slight smile. "I don't have many to choose from, to be honest. Haven't had as much…life experience, as any of you. But there is one time I always remember." She giggled. "My first time as well.

"See, when I was very young, father…uh…the Prophet of Regret, used to leave me all alone in our home for, sometimes days on end. He was always busy with work and a misguided, genocidal campaign…uh…sorry Azula." She gave another giggle. "So, I had a lot of time to keep myself interested, and I ended up watching all these vids of Sangheili aristocrats and their swords. They were soooooo cool. I just spent cycles and cycles watching them dance around with their glowy blades like it was nothing. Some propaganda of one lone Arbiter cutting straight through a heretic horde. And he was just so beautiful.

"So one day, I asked father if I could have my own sword. And he said no. So I asked him again, and he said no. So I kept asking and he kept saying no until**, **one day, he finally said yes, I think just so I would stop asking. I couldn't have a real sword, the Sangheili wouldn't like that. But he had one made especially for me."

At those words, she reached her right hand into her robe's left sleeve. A moment later, she pulled out the hilt of the blade. She rose from the table and took a few steps away before activating it. It was noticeably smaller than a standard blade, with only one short lance of energy stretching from the handle. As well, the handle was held straight, rather than horizontal. The shortness leads to a higher concentration of energy, as well as a unique, rich blue hue, as opposed to the lighter cyan. She giggled, twirling and dancing with the blade, before deactivating it and setting it back in her sleeve.

"I practiced with it every day! Oh, I loved it so much. And when I became a minister, I kept it on me at all times. This was before I had big Exi to take care of me, and I was all alone a lot too. Well, when I became a minister, father decided I was mature enough to live on my own."

"Which is a nice way of saying he kicked you out, huh?"

"Iza," Azula said. "One more word and I will lose my boot in your skinny little ass."

"Anyway," Wrath said, shaking her head. "One night after a very long debate where the Sangheili were bitching about something or another, I went home really, really tired. I just wanted to curl up in my bed and go to sleep for half a dozen cycles. But just as I was getting in my home, something really hard hit me across the back and I fell in. And this really big, scary looking Sangheili came in after me. He was really broad shouldered, and his mandibles sort of hung out of socket like he was always pissed off. And he had really big feet. 'Cause he kicked me, and I saw how big they were.

"So he orders me in the corner, and I go in the corner. I was…sort of scared. And I did what he said. I mean, I guess I could have run or screamed, but I didn't. And I listened to him rip apart my home. And then he finally came back to me and asked if anyone else was here. And I said, 'No, but my father…my father will come looking for you if you do anything to me'. And he just kinda laughed and threw me against a wall."

She sighed, cradling herself a moment. Azula leaned to the side and stroked her back carefully. "Har, this is supposed to be fun war stories. You don't have to tell us."

"No," Wrath said sharply. "I'm not a child." With a deep breath, she continued. "He…threw me against a wall, and he drew his blade. Which…was weird. The blade I mean, it had a weird hilt. But when I saw it, I remembered the one that was still in my sleeve. And I reached into my sleeve and took hold of it as he came closer. He picked me up by the throat and held me against the wall, and pulled back to run me threw. But, like I practiced a million times before, I activated my blade and stabbed it forward. And it went through his chest." She tapped the center of her own robes. "Right here. Well…he sort of stood there, and I thought that somehow he was still alive and not even hurt. But then his fingers left my throat and he fell back, and I was still holding the blade out in front of me."

She thought to herself. "His name was Gobl 'Moramee. I found that out some time later. He was a hired blade." She shrugged slightly. "That's my number one."

Kazanna gave a muffled laugh. "You go girl. Alright, Iza, you seen bustling for a word in. How about you?"

"Mine?" Iza asked. "Well, I didn't quite kill the guy, but it was still my all time favorite." He gave an odd cawing sound that was meant to be a chuckle. "To be honest, I've sort of been dying to tell this to people. You remember a while ago…there was that guy…he had a black eye and broken nose but he wouldn't say who gave it to him?"

Exilius gave a slight chuckle. Apparently he knew the story already.

Kazanna took a moment, eyes closed; searching through the stores and stores of information that she lived with and within. "Sergeant Adamska Leonivitch Stalin?" He avatar blinked away, replaced for a moment by the said soldier, then she came back.

"Yes, that was him. Well, he always, I mean ALWAYS called me tree-turkey. I mean, what is a tree-turkey anyway?"

"Something the humans eat," Priya said, for the first time in a while talking.

Iza chuckled. "Well, I was afraid he was going to eat me sometimes. He was huge."

"6'6" and weighing 376 lbs.," Kazanna said, already having his file opened. "Quite a unique specimen. A rarity for humans to grow that large without argumentation. I always wondered how he got a black eye. I figured someone punched him, but…the only ones who could reach him would be Exilius, and I doubt Exilius would stop at a simple black eye."

Iza smiled. "Well, one day, he was being himself, calling me a turkey again and again while I was just trying to eat something. But I like to turn the other cheek, so I just left. But he followed after me. And…I was really getting annoyed. And he just wouldn't stop. And finally…he grabbed me by the shoulder and sort of threw me into one of the storage areas, where there aren't cameras, which is why you don't know the story Kaz."

Kazanna groaned, and made a mental note to request cameras installed in those blind spots.

"So he brings me in and sets me down, and he's giving me all this shit. And I'm just gritting my beak cause…yeah, he's a giant. And I'm me. And he finally, FINALLY says how I can't even hurt him if I had the chance. And he just goes on and on. Well…I don't know what came over me, but I clenched my fist and swung with all my might. Right in the nose." Iza, with one long finger, showed where he had hit on Azula. "Well, my fist hit, and then sort of went up, into the eye."

"Orbital bone," Kazanna corrected.

"And he…went…down!" Iza nearly leapt from his chair in excitement. "I floored him with one shot! Only thing was…my hand really hurt after that. But he was down! One shot! Chieftain doesn't even always one-shot. That is definitely my number one."

Kazanna looked over her shoulder to Priya. "You're up," she said.

A slight upturn of the mandibles signified a Sangheili's smile. "Well, none of mine are quite that…unique. But there has been one that always stuck with me." She leaned forward. "Back during the war, against the humans, I was behind enemy lines doing stealth operations and reconnaissance. I was never too fond of that, but it was the only operation that a female was really fit for. Smaller operations. Though I would, from time to time, test my blade against the humans.

"For that time though, I had to watch them. The hierarchs were curious about human technology and tactics. I was charged with observing them and to possibly learn a weakness. It was not a fun time for me though. It was... days and days and endless weeks without the comfort of family or friends." She slightly glanced to Exilius, then to Iza. "No one to talk to, no one to share warmth with, no one to say my name."

She sighed. "And seeing the humans as long as I did, I began to wonder why we were fighting them. They seemed peaceful really. Or at least, not the barbarians that we had been lead to think they were. My translator let me understand what they were saying. I learned their patterns and their thoughts about things. Their fears that we, the monstrous Covenant would come crashing through space and raze them. It was…odd. To be that close to them and not slaughtering them by the droves."

She sighed. "When the hierarchs gave the order to raze the settlement, and the humans were all to be killed…I felt a little odd. To see these creatures that I had learned so much about, see them all killed, I don't know what I was feeling to be frank. And when the fleet came down, and the attack began, I, for the first time in ages, drew my blade and let my camouflage fade away."

She shrugged. "But I did not want to lift my blade to them. So odd."

"Stockholm syndrome," Kazanna said. "Or something like it."

"I cornered one of the humans as he was trying to flee to the base's hanger. He was a pathetic little thing, barely a soldier, of course what human is? I held my blade there, ready to slit his throat like I had done a million before him, and would do like a million after. A moment of weakness, I suppose. I hesitated. I had no translator to speak to him, but I gestured to the ship and turned my back. I would tell the fleet master that I had seen no heretics this way. Perhaps others would reach the hanger and flee as well."

She sighed. "Then I felt something impact the back of my armor. Turning, I saw that the human had drawn his side arm and shot me in the back, and he was getting ready to shoot me again." She chuckled. "I was really damn pissed at that. I killed him, really, really slow. That's my number one."

"Anything to top that, lieutenant?" Kazanna asked. "We have to give these aliens a good one from the UNSC."

Azula thought. "Nothing long or flashy, but this has to be my favorite of all time. Couple years back, before the treaty. Back on Earth, during the occupation. We did everything we could to keep the Loyalists at bay, but it wasn't exactly anything easy. Tensions were running high. Fights were common, if not frequent. Major Donavon had left me in charge of a barrack full of civilians we had managed to evacuate from New Mombasa through the subway tunnels. If any Covenant found us, they would find us all stuffed like sardines ready to be eaten.

"There's a big fight in the mess hall. Two of the biggest fuck-heads you can imagine, a civie and one of my privates, and four of my soldiers doing everything they can to keep the two fuck-heads apart. It's riling up the crowd, who is actually pissed we are keeping them there! Calling us fascists! So the rest of the soldiers are trying to keep everyone in order while these two idiots are just about clawing each other to pieces.

"There's no time for that bullshit, so I walk into the middle of the room and stand on a table, and point my shotgun at ceiling. I shoot, and everyone goes quite. I'm about to make some sort of bullshit speech when a Jackal comes falling out of the hole I made in the ceiling. I had shot him in the chest. Well, the Covies knew where we were apparently. That was a recon. We managed to evacuate almost everyone before the tanks came rolling in.

"Well, that's my number one."


End file.
